About a year ago we started using Google Docs in our office for collaborating on projects that involve more than one contributor - anything that requires team work. We provide promotional services for a lot of different types of companies, and each company often needs several different components- blog posts, press releases, articles, videos, etc. - and different tasks are usually assigned to different individuals.

Having shared documents makes it much easier to coordinate everyone's activities. With Google Docs you create one master document and then give different people access to it (you "share" it with them.) At each step of the process the master document is the one that everyone refers to. The coordinator of a project can write an outline for, say, a press release. Then the writer of the release can access that outline and right there within the same document write the finished script.

Of course this is all done online. You can access your Google Docs account from any computer with an internet connection and a browser. That means you don't have to carefully pack up your work and take it with you whenever you're away from the computer you use for such tasks.

This works well with complicated projects as well as simple ones. With this approach you can see how much easier it would be to organize and delegate specific jobs. For example, for any project where you have created a project outline you can farm out any aspect to other people. Just give them access to the outlines and away they go.

You can do this with spreadsheets in Google Docs too. For example, say you want to make a list of all the condo developments in your service area, with relevant information about each development. Just create a Google Docs spreadsheet, set up your columns and start entering information.

If you want to off-load part of the task to a partner, your assistant, your spouse, or a virtual assistant in India or Timbuktu, just give them access to the doc and they're in business. You don't have to send them a copy of the doc. They just access it online.

There are too many features of Google Docs to cover here, but this gives you a fairly good idea of its flexibility and ease of use.

And, oh yeh, I forgot to mention. Google Docs is free.